Linear search of a linked list

Question

I am trying to do a linear search of a linked list. One search is by int and the other String. What am I doing wrong? **Updated the code based on recommendations.

Within the main

    public static LinkedList<Contributor> contributorList = new LinkedList<>();

        String searchKey = "Jones";
        int intSearchKey = 45;

        System.out.println("Search key " + searchKey + " is found? " + sequentialSearch(contributorList, searchKey));

        System.out.println("Search key " + intSearchKey + " is found? " + sequentialSearch(contributorList, intSearchKey));



Called methods    



    public static <Contributor> boolean sequentialSearch(Iterable<Contributor> contributorList, int intSearchKey) {
    Iterator<Contributor> iter = contributorList.iterator();
    while (iter.hasNext()) {
        if (iter.next().equals(intSearchKey)) {
            return true;
        }
        iter = (Iterator<Contributor>) iter.next();
    }
    return false;
}

public static <Contributor> boolean sequentialSearch(Iterable<Contributor> contributorList, String searchKey) {
    Iterator<Contributor> iter = contributorList.iterator();
    while (iter.hasNext()) {
        if (iter.next().equals(searchKey)) {
            return true;
        }
        iter = (Iterator<Contributor>) iter.next();
    }
    return false;
}

Answer 1

This line compares a Contributor object to a String.

if (iter.next().equals(searchKey)) {

Without seeing Contributor object, I'm guessing you want something like this

if (iter.next().getKey().equals(searchKey)) {

Also, this line makes no sense:

 iter = (Iterator<Contributor>) iter.next();

iter.next() returns the element type, not an iterator